Retired general Joaquin Pou Castro, who was serving a 30-year sentence at the prison for officers of the Armed Forces died yesterday. He had been convicted for his part in the assassination of journalist Orlando Martinez Howley on 17 March 1975. Pou Castro, who was in his seventies, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Court of the First Instance together with Mariano Cabrera Duran and Rafael Alfredo Lluberes Ricart. The murdered journalist’s family took their appeal to the Supreme Court, and on 8 December 2007 the penalty was increased to the maximum 30-year sentence permitted by law. The original sentence was issued on the basis of Pou Castro being an accomplice. However, the Supreme Court found sufficient evidence to prove that the former general had been the killer, and therefore liable for the maximum sentence. The Dominican Communist Party had claimed from the outset that Pou Castro had committed the crime.